June 2010

This is mostly just an effort to keep updated. I wanted to post about both boys in case everyone thinks I forget about my firstborn. Rest assured, he's the type of kid who won't allow that to happen! Babies change so fast and I want to make sure that's all documented, I also realize that in the process C1 doesn't seem to be talked about as much. So here's a healthy dose of both boys. And all of us, really :)

CAMERON

Cam just turned 10 months recently. And I think I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I've never quite believed we get to keep him here, for some reason. I don't want to call it a lack of faith. I just tend to run on the anxious side, and if I'm worried about something sometimes I just don't ask Heavenly Father about it at all. I'd rather not know and deal with whatever comes if needed. Weird, I know. And for some other not-quite-known reason, 10 months has been the magic age in the back of my mind. Now he's a substantial size and I guess just been here long enough that I really believe it. I still stare at him every day in gratitude and thank Heavenly Father that he joined our family.

I also marvel at how different the boys are. Christopher was such an easy baby, and Cameron is both more curious and has had more complications. But of course, everyone comes with their own personalities, and just because C1 was an easy baby does not mean he's always been easy! More about that later.

C2 is at an interesting phase, with lots of stuff to keep up with. Teething, crawling all over, trying to eat anything he can get his hands on. And his eczema complicates things a bit. We still have to put socks on his hands often to keep him from scratching himself mercilessly. He still loves to be wherever his brother is, and involved in what everyone else is doing. Something I haven't mentioned before and that is kind of new is that he just LOVES his Papa (my dad). As soon as he sees him, he wants him and only him. He cries if he sees him leave. It's pretty darn cute, if a little annoying for me to deal with :).

Here's a cute recent pic of him with Joel at my office at Coors Field when they came for a game. I just love this picture.

CHRISTOPHER

And here's the big boy! I am astounded as he grows. I can't believe he is now just about school age and still find myself surprised that I'm a mom at all at times, let alone am about to have a child in kindergarten. Everyday I am aware of the responsibility we have as parents, and how complicated it is to worry- or not worry- about every little choice we make and whether it will affect or "damage" them in the long-run. This is a lot more prevalent with older kids than babies or toddlers, I am learning.

Christopher is a very strong personality, and we call him a control-freak daily. He tends to melt-down if thing don't go his way, or something is not what he thought it would be. I'm trying really hard to work with him on it and let him know that most of these things are not really a big deal. But I'm sure to him they seem that way. At the same time, I'm often pleasantly surprised by his reaction to things, and it seems sweeter in contrast to the fact that he has the other reactions. I guess it's that whole "you have to experience the bad to appreciate the good" concept.

He's very smart (aren't they all? :)) and keeps me on my toes. There are lots of times he'll work really hard to get my attention, to the point that I'm extremely annoyed and say "what?!" only to have him say "I love you, Mom" Usually this is in front of others so that I'm properly ashamed :). He's also very sweet and loving a lot of the time. And he does LOVE his baby brother, but he's also becoming more and more aware of the jealousy issues, and getting annoyed with Cam on a daily basis when he wants to play with him and just messes things up.

I think I have decided to go ahead and put him in kindergarten despite the fact that we will most likely move mid-semester and I know he'll have a hard time adjusting. I try to talk to him about it and prepare as much as possible, but I think the benefits of him interacting with other kids and learning new things out-weighs the negative aspects. And honestly, I'll have to deal with his issues with change either way!

Here are a couple of cute pictures my sister Denise took the last time she visited:

LOVE LOVE LOVE these boys. I am learning so much as a mother. It's amazing how much capacity we have to love, to think outside of ourselves and put someone else first. To care more about that little baby than getting sleep, or putting on makeup and looking decent :). I'm so grateful that we get to have our little family. If it grows, all the better! But I have realized lately that I feel really fulfilled and just want to raise my family in righteousness and so that they're happy and have a great life-experience.

JOEL and KRISTEN

Not too much is new with the adults around here. We've been dealing with lots of crazy stuff with friends and family, which has caused us to be very reflective and talk to each other more about things. But it has also made us really grateful for our lack of major hardships and each other, and I think has made it easier to overlook the little things. We're looking forward to the future and trying to deal as best we can with the present. We worry about all of the things everyone worries about in the present economy situation. Joel recently took the second pay-cut in 6 months, which makes things tight and complicates our plans for saving; but we're grateful to have our jobs at all and try to count our blessings.

We are enjoying the little things like watching our boys grow and appreciating the things we get to do, and this time we have to spend with my family and our local friends; and look forward to seeing old friends and Joel's family more, and doing new things in Orlando later this year.

Cameron at 9 months

At just over 9 months, Cameron weighs 17.9 lbs (10th percentile), is 27 1/2 inches "tall" (25th percentile) and his head circumference is 46.5 (75th percentile :)). He's still nursing a couple of times a day, and takes soy formula and snacks on french fries and Ritz crackers quite a bit. He just started crawling on the 8th-almost exactly 2 months after he first sat up unassisted- and all of the sudden he is all over the place and trying to eat everything on the floor! He also cut his first tooth-the left bottom front- on May 14th and the right one came just two days later. Today his pediatrician said the upper center 4 look like they could come any day as well. He is already way into using said teeth. He likes to try to bite us in the weirdest places! He got 2 shots today, one for regular flu and one for H1N1, and he only cried for a few seconds, when he realized she was going to poke him the second time. His eczema is still kind of bad, especially on the back of his knees and in his elbow bending-area. We still put socks on his hands quite a bit to keep him from scratching himself so much.

Other random things about Cam: he loves to play patty-cake and peek-a-boo; he's been sleeping through the night especially great the past couple of nights, he's really happy in the morning and attacks all of us- but especially Christopher :)- until we wake up. He says "da" often and uses it surprisingly appropriately to get Joel's attention. He says "ma" and "na" (this one seems related to eating), and "hi" and babbles other nonsense a lot. He also likes to dance to music and will do so on command.

Here are some pictures from today after his appointment:

Crawling around in the entryway area.
Sometimes when he's crawling he really doesn't like his knees to be on the ground
Playing with an empty bottle. That's my Dad sacked out behind him after doing some of his campaign walking. I like how he's holding his ipad like a lovey :P
Pretty tuckered out himself after the Doctor appointment. This was his longest nap the past couple of days.

He's growing up way too fast, and I sometimes I'm still surprised he's here. I like to just stare at him while he's sleeping and marvel. Anyway, onward to 1 year! It has flown by and I'm sure won't stop anytime soon. I'm really going to need another cute little baby, hopefully that's not too much to ask for!

Easter 2010

Easter was April 4th this year, so obviously I'm a little behind, but at least I'm doing it, right? Easter happened to be General Conference Sunday this year, so we really had no reason to dress the kids up, but you have to do Easter outfits! So, I woke up early and made everyone sausage and french toast, and we watched Conference, and then we dressed them up and went up to Arkansas Elementary to do a little Easter Egg Hunt (we've done that the past 2 or 3 years now). We had to use the front of the school this year instead of the back because other people stole our idea. So, here are some pics of the kids after they got their eggs:The Boys, The Boys
The Rice kids, JoJo and Lily
Christopher
Cameron, and yes, his lips are blue from trying to eat the egg. So darn cute.
The best pic we could get of all of the kids. The only one where Cameron was looking! Those silly older boys.

Lots of fun, and of course, Christopher LOVES these holidays where candy is involved! Lorae actually took the kids shopping a few weeks early and let them pick out most of their stuff, and then the Easter Bunny added a little bit. This added up to a LOT of stuff for these lucky kids! Love all of them!

Cameron, first quarter of 2010

Oh, there has been SO much going on with Mr. Cameron. We went to a dermatologist for his eczema, and got a new cream that seems to work better for him. It's mostly gone from his head now, but that sure hasn't stopped him from scratching! Although some of the scratching for a while was in and around his ears, which leads to the next malady....

I may have posted that at his 6-month well-care checkup, they found an ear infection that was apparently pretty bad that we had no clue about. So, he started on antibiotics and we kept going back for check-ups monthly. Well, at the next one, they found TWO ear infections, so we tried another antibiotic. Next check-up, same thing. We got a referral for an ear, nose and throat specialist after that one. We went to Dr. Dickey and he strongly recommended ear tubes, which I agreed to immediately. The alternative was yet another antibiotic, but I was over copays and such at this point and wanted to cut to the chase. We had to have him fast the night before, and they put him under for the procedure, but it took all of 20 minutes and after a very fussy baby fully woke, everything was pretty good after that.

I should note that Cameron has actually been very good-natured through all of this stuff. Overall I would say he's always been a fairly happy baby. But we have seen a change for the better since the tubes. He sleeps longer at night, and the scratching around the ears is gone.

So, now for the scariest sickness, which actually happened before the tubes and for which I have a picture to illustrate. A couple of days after his check-up (presumably in reaction to his shots), Cam spiked a fever of 105.6 twice ( a day or two apart), and his skin got all blotchy, like this:
(You will notice, still a pretty happy baby!). Well, I had never seen a temp that high, and I kind of freaked, but I also don't call a doctor unless I'm pretty much dying, so I went to our pediatrician's website first. It said not to come in unless the fever didn't come down with tylenol. So we did that and baths and it came down. At the next appointment (to check on the ear infection), we told the doctor what had happened, and he said it was almost definitely Roseola, a form of Measles! Sheesh, how much can this baby get?? Anyway, I'm glad it passed pretty much without incident and he'll certainly never have that one again!

Other than all of this, he's just been growing away. Now that I'm finally home with him a bit, he's consistently taking 2 naps a day and pretty happy otherwise. He's starting to eat more solid foods and only nurses a couple of times a day. He has just discovered sippy cups, and Ritz crackers, which he loves! I still just love to look at him and marvel that he's here at all. And yet, as he grows, I'm starting to dare hope I can have another one! Crazy how that works :)

Christopher at 4 and a 1/2ish

Christopher is....hmmmmm...what to say?? The positive stuff is, he's really smart (I know, every mom thinks that, and they're all right, I am sure! :)). He picks up on things I'm amazed by almost every day. He has grown socially by leaps and bounds thanks to his preschool, music class, and primary interactions. He can be extremely sweet and will tell me he loves me completely out of the blue. However, he is still quite the control-freak; and VERY strong-willed. We have daily struggles over the simplest things. I'm really trying to get him to learn to pick his battles and that these little things he gets so upset about really aren't important in the long-run. But most of the times I feel like I fail miserably. We're debating whether or not to have him start kindergarten in the Fall due to the fact that we may move mid-semester and one of the things he has a really hard time with is change. He STILL talks about our old house and his old primary class.

He LOVES his baby brother, though he does have some small jealousy issues that pop up every now and then. Luckily he has yet to actually take anything out on Cameron!

Physically, he is about 41 inches tall(we checked because we're thinking about a Disneyland trip this summer and wanted to see if he could go on most of the rides), and about 35 pounds.

We love our fast-growing boy! I can hardly believe this summer we will have a 5-yr-old. They grow up so fast!

Catching up is hard to do....

...Seriously! I don't even know where to begin. I've been working a TON lately and I wish I would have at least blogged from my Rockies job, cuz this is going to be really hard! I'm going to try to list most of the things I want to remember here, and then I'll try to elaborate and include some pics in some follow-up posts.

The last week of February I started working pretty much full-time at Rangeview, both subbing for my mom a bit and helping prep for CSAP testing. It was crazy as usual. New people were in charge this year, and it's quite the process, so it was a little stressful. I ended up working a LOT for the school all through March and well into April (prepping for ACTs) as well. Waking up at 5am is not my favorite! Of course April 10th was Opening Day for the Rockies, and I love being back at that job, though staying up that late is getting harder and harder for me. We've had a lot of crazy stuff this year so far. The first No-Hitter pitched by a Rockie (Ubaldo Jiminez, April 17th, a road game in Atlanta, so unfortunately I didn't see it in person). Then on April 21st, Keli McGregor, the President of the Rockies, was found dead in SLC at 48, apparently of natural causes. He was someone I'd met a few times and saw around a lot and exchanged pleasantries with. It was odd that he was so young, and he was in great shape. It hit the Organization pretty hard for a few days. I went to his Memorial which was very nice. Everyone was pretty ok until his kids talked, then it was hard! Through all of this time I have also been doing hair, so obviously this has made for a very busy and tired Kristen! But it helps our finances and that's nice :)

Joel's job has been kind of frustrating. They closed his branch in November, and he had to take a demotion to keep his job. He went back to his original position at his original branch and took a pay-cut. He's just about to take another one, which is frustrating, but I know some people have it much worse financially than we do right now. The part that is hard is it seems to get him down, I know it's hard on his ego and puts him in a hard position at work, and I feel bad for him. But we're trying to have a positive attitude and just keep forging forward with what is within our control.

Cameron will, of course, have his own post to catch up. He's been through a lot of little not-so-fun things (ear infections which led to getting tubes, measles, eczema...), but overall he is a GREAT baby and we love him LOTS! Ditto for Christopher, tho he has lots of little quirks more and more lately!

Also towards the end of February, on the 25th, my cousin Becky went into pre-term labor in her 21st week of pregnancy and subsequently lost her twins. I don't want to go into too much detail, because it's really not my story to tell, but I wanted to make note of it so we remembered the date and everything. She named them Scarlett and Luke and I can't wait until we can see them an am sad they won't be here, but know they will be part of our eternal family. After this happened, she started a team for the March for Babies through March of Dimes, and as a team we raised over $2000 and walked in at least 4 different states in memory of the twins! In Denver it was a 5-mile walk towards the end of April, and I took both boys and my Dad came with us. It was a great experience.

March 18th we took Christopher to see the First National Tour of Mary Poppins the Musical at the Buell Theatre downtown. It was his first professional-type live performance (besides the Disney Cruise Shows), and he did pretty well. It was a LONG play and the first Act kind of dragged, but the 2nd Act had lots of fun stuff and kept him entertained. It was fun to take him to something like that. Totally taking him to Wicked next time it comes around, he loves the music and keeps asking when he can see it!

March 20th was Joel's birthday, he turned 32. We celebrated a week later with a night out with my cousin and his wife. Now he's got 2 years on me til June :).

Towards the end of March, we had a few days off together (Joel took some time of thinking he would go to Florida for something, but that fell-through; I was on Spring Break with the school). We wanted to do a little in-state traveling, but our tax-return didn't come in time. So, we just spent some time as a family and relaxed. Mini-golf, zoo, parks, etc.

Easter will have its own post too, I have some fun pics. We celebrated with our family and the Fowler/Rice/Jones Family. It was also Conference Sunday this year.

Well, that's mostly it. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, as it was I had to go back through my facebook updates to try to remember everything! I would like to note that a lot of people we love and care about are going through some really hard things. It's made me think of 2010 in kind of a negative way so far, although it has also helped minimize and put our trials into perspective. Again, not really my stories to tell, but we think of and pray for them a lot and I wanted them to know that; the ones who read the blog anyway. :)

Pictures and Such

Here are some cute recent pictures:

Christopher sleeping on the living room chair. He always seems so quiet and harmless sleeping like this :)

Christopher and Cameron one Sunday in their only matching outfits. I love how C1 looks like he's plotting world domination or something.

K, this has happened a few times, but I actually got pictures twice. They both usually wake up in our bed of course, but it's amazing to me that they're totally sleeping and in the same position a lot of the time!

Love, love, love my boys!